Yesterday I talked about results of the British inquiry into the murder of Litvinenko. It was a work of an activist judge and from there I managed to link it to the famous criterion of Hare Kṛṣṇa popularity – vaiṣṇavism will win when judges will wear tilakas. The way justice is done these days, however, it would probably be an indictment rather than a victory.
I haven’t finished the story and I have no idea how to connect it to Kṛṣṇa today. My mind was quite agitated by report’s revelations and I think I need to put my thoughts into writing so that the gods controlling the news leave me alone. I should’t have stumbled into their territory and now they have a firm grip over my consciousness, demanding a significant share of my mind’s attention.
Anyway, the “inquiry” was more of a trial even if not legally so. The judge not only tried to determine the facts of the case but also find the perpetrators and determine their guilt. Two individuals, Lugovoi and Kovtun, were judged guilty and Russian president Putin “probably guilty”. Since it wasn’t an actual trial the judge could get away with real travesty of justice – there was no defense whatsoever and despite proclaiming the inquiry “open” it relied on classified information never seen by the public and a statement by a code named individual to the police in another country. He simply didn’t want to testify in front of the judge and there was no defense to cross examine him anyway. Also there was no jury so whatever judge liked to hear easily became “facts” and “truth”.
Maybe they are facts, who knows, but with “trials” like this Britain should never ever complain about judicial systems in the rest of the world, which they love to do whenever there’s an occasion.
Despite the guilty verdict the inquiry discovered that a lot of public information about this case was plain wrong but this was never announced and needs to be gleaned from their report itself, which is 300 pages long and therefore beyond the comprehension of an average citizen.
Litvinenko’s deathbed statement, for example, was confirmed to be a hoax, a paper typed up by his friend without any factual basis to it. The polonium that killed him could have come from anywhere and there’s no way to prove that it was from Russia. It could also be bought quite cheaply in the West. The most striking discovery in my view, however, was the background of the alleged murderers. Wikipedia still states that one of them, Kovtun, has worked for KGB. It fits the “everybody knows” theory that he was a brutal KGB trained assassin sent by Moscow. The inquiry found something entirely different.
Kovtun was drafted into Soviet army just like every other man in the country and was sent to serve in Czechoslovakia and then East Germany where he met a local woman and got married. When news came in that his unit was about to be transferred to Chechnya he deserted and fled to West Germany. He lived in Hamburg until 2003, mostly on welfare but he also supplemented his income by collecting trash and bussing tables. Eventually he was picked up by another alleged killer, Lugovoi, who was his childhood friend, and given a place by his side.
Lugovoi did work for KGB but he left in mid-nineties to start a business providing security to VIPs. He was doing very well but then his patron, Russian oligarch Boris Berezovski, fell out of favor when Putin came to power and fled from Russia to London. Lugovoi helped arrange escape of one of Berezovski’s acolytes, got caught, and spent fifteen months in jail. He then continued riding Berezovski’s coattails and that’s how he got to know Litvinenko, the victim. They met numerous times and Litvinenko didn’t suspect him to be his killer at all.
After the murder Lugovoi became a minor celebrity in Russia and appeared on TV. He then used his newly found popularity to get elected as an MP for the opposition party. The end. Does he look like James Bond, a KGB trained assassin? I bet if this biography was presented to the jury they would dismiss him as a potential suspect. Litvinenko himself pointed to a different man, an Italian, of whom I know nothing and don’t want to learn any more.
Litvinenko’s brother told the media last week that Russia had nothing to do with the murder and that KGB/FSB didn’t care about him at all. His work there didn’t involve any classified information, he wasn’t a spy, and no one cared what he had to say.
These days when we talk about defectors and intelligence gathered from various dissidents we point to Iraq and how they all screamed about WMD’s there. It was all lies designed to impress their western handlers and talk up their own value. They probably learned this method from Russians, however, who played this trick over and over again for a decade before Iraqi debacle.
Just last year, when Russian opposition politician was murdered right outside Kremlin the media said that the motive was his explosive investigation into Russian involvement in Ukraine. A couple of months later his paper came out, compiled by his friends from his notes, but no one bothered to report on it because it was a dud.
Same thing was with Litvinenko. Maybe Russian FSB did blow apartment buildings themselves to blame it on Chechens but by 2006 when Litvinenko was murdered Chechens had already committed a long list of despicable acts of terrorism and no one would taken claims that their were innocent seriously. They held a theater hostage, they held a hospital hostage, including a maternity ward, they had a school hostage, though some of these acts might have happened later, I don’t remember.
Anyway, the inquiry was a joke but it was meant to influence public opinion, not seek actual justice, and to satisfy judge’s ego, too. And now I hope gods of news are satisfied and I will never have to revisit this subject again. I don’t know who the real murderer was, just one quick look at the report shows an unmanageable number of details. Maybe Lugovoi and Kovtun did it, I don’t care, I’m just appalled at how justice is done in the UK.
Last offering to gods – I’ve also watched a video compilation of Hillary Clinton’s flip-flops on several issues and I actually came to trust the woman. I know she almost certainly lies when he mouth moves and that every thing she says is meant to brainwash the listeners but she is consistent in that and therefore predictable. She WILL make mistakes and she WILL deny making them. She has her own warped version of reality that she presents everywhere but behind that she is just a woman. Maybe I’m being sexist but I believe that is a fact. I mean it’s a typical female behavior – never admit to anything and always turn everything in your own favor. Even when you approach her in full confidence that now you finally nailed her she’ll still manage to make you feel guilty. At heart, however, women know they are wrong and they know they are vulnerable and they do want to do the right thing, everything else is just fluff.
Finally, the gods of news were favorable to me and directed me to the latest Bernie Sanders’ campaign ad. I don’t want to comment on its content but at 9 second mark there’s a face of a Hare Kṛṣṇa devotee there, so I’ll leave you with that:
back2krishna 